Monday, December 25, 2017

Christmas 2017 - the Christmas gift

In the name of the
Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit – Amen.

And so we have
arrived at another Christmas morning! No doubt many of the children
here were up early, exited to see what Santa had to bring them …
and I hope all were good through the year and received a nice present
or two … and not lumps of coal as a reward for bad behaviour …
and no doubt later many here, having consumed a delicious Christmas
feast will sit around a nice fire, with a hot cup of tea in their
hand, or maybe even something stronger and exchange gifts with their
families …

And a child pointed
out something interesting to me the other day about gift giving.
People don't really expect children to give gifts in return at
Christmas. Oh, they might give a few small presents to immediate
family … a little something for mum and dad, and their brothers and
sisters … but if an auntie drops by with a bale of pressies for all
the family, mom and dad will surely have something nice ready to give
her, but auntie won't really expect the childer to have something for
her. All grown ups really expect in return for the large selection
box full of tasty treats or the new game to load into the x-box or
whatever it is that they have brought is seeing the excitement on the
faces as they tear open the wrapping paper, the smiles and the happy
voices as what is within is revealed, and the enjoyment as the
present is taken out and eaten, played with, or perhaps even put on.

Oh, and of course, a big thank you. The saying thank you for what has
been received, the heart-felt expression of gratitude is very
important. There's nothing quite like seeing a happy face looking up
at you saying 'thank you – oh, thank you' and knowing that they
really mean it to warm your heart and make you feel that the trouble
you took was not only worth it, but as nothing in the face of the joy
that present has brought.

But why do we give
gifts at Christmas? It is something I have often wondered about.
There are various theories. One of the most popular is that the idea
for doing so comes from Scripture, from the account St Matthew gives
us of an event that took place not long after the birth of our Lord.
In his gospel, the evangelist tells us of the wise men who came from
the East, believing that a new King has been born to the Jews, a
great king who will rule over all the earth in fulfilment of ancient
prophecies that were widely known through all of the Ancient World, a
prophecy they believed had finally come true because they had seen
his star in the East, and they wanted to be the first to pay him
homage.

They went first to
Jerusalem, to the court of King Herod – for where else would one
expect to find the new born king of the Jews to be except in the
palace of the king?

But as we all know he wasn't there. In fact their
visit and the reason for it troubled the people of Jerusalem greatly
– and no one more than the wicked king Herod who thought this new
king might be a threat to his own power. But the chief priests and
the scribes told these wise men that the expected king, whom the Jews
referred to as the Messiah or the Christ, because he was the anointed
one of God, was to be born in Bethlehem.

And so they went to
Bethlehem. And the star they had seen in the East went before them
and guided them to the place. And, as I said before, it was some
little time after the Birth of our Lord, for the Holy Family were no
longer in the stable where he had been born, but they were now in a
house. And the wise men went into this house the star rested over and
the paid homage to the Christ-child, the one they knew to be the new
born king.

And, as we know,
they did more than worship him. They gave him gifts – gifts worthy
of a king: gold, frankincense, and myrrh, because gold, of course has
always been highly prized in all times and in all places and aromatic
spices like frankincense and myrrh were probably worth more than
their weight in gold in the Ancient World. And so the thinking goes
that because the wise men gave gifts to the Christ-child that first
Christmas, the custom arose of all Christians giving gifts to each
other at this time … especially to children!

But, of course, it
might be for another reason. For a far greater gift was given at that
time that gold and precious spices; and that gift was not given to
the Christ-child – that gift was the Christ-child and he was given
to the whole world, a gift to all the people alive then and to all
the people who would be born afterwards, generation after generation
until the end of time itself – literally the gift that goes on
giving! And this gift was a gift beyond all price – it was God
himself entering into the world so that all men and women could be
saved and have eternal life – a gift so precious that if it were
lost all the world and all it contains would not be enough to
compensate any man or woman for so great a loss.

It is a gift that
God gives to us. And he asks nothing in return. Indeed, what gift
could we give to the one who created the universe and all that is in
it? No, like a loving Father he expects nothing in return for his
gift; nothing but our excitement at receiving it, our happy voices
raised in praise of so great a gift, our joyful faces looking up to
him in heaven as we embrace the wonder that has been given to us.
That and, of course, our thanks; the thanks that tells him that it
was worth it to send his Son into world for us; a thanks we have
gathered here today to give him; and a thanks that I pray all here
will give him always. Amen.

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About Me

Hi, I'm Paddy (the Rev Patrick G. Burke), a priest in the Church of Ireland. The title of the blog is from a description of me in a letter my grandmother wrote to my mother in 1965 when I was three! May God richly bless you and those whom you love today and everyday. Amen.